Busan, South Korea

See Map of South Korea here:

 http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/maps/map_country_koreasouth.html

     To be honest, I was a little bit worried about my trip to Busan (pronounced Pusan). I wanted to see the Film Festival and the beach, but it meant leaving Ashley here in Seoul (she is teaching at a local girls private school) getting on the subway for 45 minutes to get to Seoul Station where I would buy a KTX fast train ticket. Get on the train and travel three and a half hours south to Busan. I knew of one soul in Busan—and it was someone I had only talked to through email. Basically I don’t feel as confident here because I do not know the language.

      Well, as I sometimes do, I ended up worrying more than was necessary. At the last minute, a friend I met on the DMZ tour emailed me and said he was going to Busan the next day as well. Mike is a Chinese-American from New Jersey who has studied Korean—so he was very kind to help me get around. We met at Seoul Station, got tickets and headed to Busan. Upon arriving we got oriented with a map of the city.

       Jagalchi Market is the local fish market right on the ocean—that was our first stop for some lunch. Korean food is fairly spicy-but I enjoyed tasting the fish and vegetable dishes. We then walked through an area called Nampo-dong. In addition to two cinemas playing the international films for the PIFF (Pusan International Film Festival), there is a lot of shopping both western stores—like ‘Columbia’ and ‘Patagonia’ the sports clothes brands as well as street vendors who set up there stands with watches, purses, scarves, etc. I saw another foreigner in passing with a UGA cell phone cover on his phone. I yelled “go dawgs!” as we passed and found out that he is in the Navy, stationed in Japan but was on liberty this week—he is from the North side of Atlanta. What a small world.

        Later we went to a coffee shop and put our feet in a fish tank for a “Dr. Fish” experience. Very interesting this Korean foot therapy—small fish nibble at your feet—eating the dead skin and fungus or whatever off your feet. It felt so weird! They would just nibble away at your feet and it tickled so much. Although my feet did feel a bit cleaner and softer that night, I cant help but thinking that something about it wasn’t very sanitary, the thought of other peoples feet having been in the same water ---or that the fish relieved themselves in that same water. Either way, I am glad to have participated in this Korean custom, and haven’t had any negative results on my feet…yet.

      Liz is teaching English in Busan and is who I had been emailing prior to coming because her Aunt had got us in contact with eachother. I was able to stay at her place, so all worked out nicely. I planned to meet Mike the next morning at the Busan Museum of Modern Art---and then met with Liz and her friends who were celebrating one of their birthdays! Guess what? I ran into two more UGA graduates—they were on the field and graduating the same day I did in May of this year. Again, it is a small world after all.

Day 2 in Busan:
     The Museum of Modern Art was so much fun. I really liked seeing all the little children in uniforms holding hands and walking through the museum. Also, there were middle school and high school girls sitting outside the Museum under trees with easels painting the landscape.

      From there I went to see a film for the festival in a really neat Cinema not far away. Later, I went to the beautiful Haeundae Beach where the festival had more tents and stages set up for interviews with directors and awards going on.

      The perfect ending to my time in Busan was walking along the beach at sunset:

  crab fishermen enjoyed getting their picture taken:

 and a sweet Korean lady approached me speaking in English.

 

    She began to share Christ with me in English, mind you, this is not her native language. I was very impressed and inspired by this. I let her go on a little as I wanted to hear all that she had to say. Then, I opened up and told her about my walk with the Lord and she was so happy she could hardly stand it. Mrs. Lee invited me to dinner at her home, and I decided that I could take a later train back to Seoul, so we walked up the hill to her home. I was so blessed to hear more of her story, learn about her family, eat traditional Korean food, and learn some of their eating customs.

       Mrs. Lee also told me about how her mother moved to South Korea before the war. Her mother cried often because all of her mother’s siblings are in North Korea, they still do not know to this day how her siblings are—even if they are dead or alive as there is no internet or mail allowed into or out of North Korea. It really brought things into perspective hearing a true story about a family torn apart. What I saw and learned about at the DMZ on Tuesday became real, not just an illusion of a country divided. The older generation still desires unity, while the younger generation--who are less connected to the separation--believe unity could be destructive to their South Korean economy.

        After giving each other gifts, we said our goodbyes and I was off on the last train out of Busan headed to Seoul. I don’t know what I was so worried about, it was a great and safe adventure!